When the iMac freezes up and I do a reboot, all the previously open applications are reopened. How do I change that so I can select which applications I want to reopen?
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
Open System Preferences > General
Deselect: Restore windows when quitting and re opening apps
How do I change that so I can select which applications I want to reopen?
System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items
Click + to add the apps you want to launch when you boot your Mac.
You may need to click the gold padlock icon bottom left corner of the pane to make changes.
Open System Preferences > General
Deselect: Restore windows when quitting and re opening apps
How do I change that so I can select which applications I want to reopen?
System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items
Click + to add the apps you want to launch when you boot your Mac.
You may need to click the gold padlock icon bottom left corner of the pane to make changes.
Carolyn Samit,
Thank you for the suggestions. The "Restore windows when quitting and re opening apps" choice in System Preferences > General is deselected. I think that is the default for the choice.
I do have a few apps in the Login Items that are set to launch at bootup (e.g., Snapz Pro X, Himmelbar, DiskWarriorStarter, Microsoft Database Daemon, Dropbox), but they open in the background. The apps that re open after a reboot are whatever apps were open when the freeze occurred (e.g., Acrobat, Firefox, Microsoft Word, Mail, et al).
Thanks again.
davegriffith
You might also try the following and see if it helps.
Select restart from the Apple menu. In the restart dialog, make sure "Reopen windows..." is not checked.
If you are running the latest Lion (and the freezes and forced restarts haven't messed up your system too much), that preference should become the default.
Next, in another thread, we should address the real issue: why does your iMac freeze? Unless you are using some very flakey software, this is not supposed to ever happen. I can't remember the last time it happened to me, and I use my machine extensively for some pretty hefty computations. It's been years, I think.
charlie
Greetings,
Thank you for the suggestion about checking the choice in the Restart dialog window. "Reopen windows..." is deselected.
The particular freeze that prompted the question about why the previously used apps were automatically reopening was the second freeze today. I agree that it is not supposed to happen, but my iMac is the exception. Most of my work is word processing (Microsoft Word, Acrobat, etc.) with occassional data mining (FileMaker Pro 12) and Web cruising (Firefox). As far as I know, the apps and utilities on the machine are 'vanilla' (ordinary) and clean.
Thanks again for the suggestion. My wish is that you will have many more years of "freeze-free" computing.
davegriffith
Remove one item at a time in the Login Items list then restart your Mac. These apps are not opening in the background. They are launched and reaedy to use.
Start with DiskWarriorStarter and Microsoft Database Daemon.
One or more of those apps is causing your Mac to freeze when you startup.
Carolyn, your answers are kind but incorrect. The Reopen "feature" checkbox, whether in Settings or in a dialog just before a restart has NOTHING to do with the fact that the OS will restart every single piece of app and docs you had opened when you *crashed*. It can NOT disable that behavior. The fact that this level of resume is built into the system is probably the single WORST "feature" Apple engineers have included by default (that you can't disable)! WHAT were they thinking? This blunder infuriates me to a point that I wouldn't be able to guarantee the engineer's safety if he or she stood next to me while I'm getting a dose of this "feature" after I crashed!
After a crash, how do I stop Lion from reopening the previous apps.ening
